Douglas Todd: Defining the prophets of our age

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, and was a key figure in the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Prophets, he wrote, are people of deep love and compassion.Photo by

With its guiding stars, wise men and gifts of gold and frankincense, the festival of Christmas is best known for celebrating the birth of a baby who would become a wisdom teacher and embodiment of the divine.

But Christmas also marks the birth of a boy who, measured by worldly success, would be a failure.

Buried in the Christmas story is the hard reality that Jesus of Nazareth would grow up to be a prophet.

Jesus was destined to become a radical reformer who denounced brutality and turned the established order upside down — something for which he would pay the ultimate price, execution.

Like the Hebrew prophets who came before him, Jesus felt called to seek justice and tell difficult truths. Multitudes experienced him as the voice of the holy. At times, like earlier prophets, his tongue could be a “sharp sword.”

Prophets rarely win popularity contests. They are often considered dangerous. And they are usually forced to suffer.

Some people think prophets are simply men and women who predict the future, like fortune tellers. But it’s more accurate to say prophets try to warn a society about how its unethical trajectories are leading to calamity,

Famous Biblical prophets include Moses, Isaiah and Jeremiah. The Greeks had the prophetess, Cassandra. Though judged insane, she predicted how a Trojan Horse would be used to conquer a great city. Muslims, for their part, refer to their religion’s founder as “Prophet Muhammad.”

There are secular prophets, too. They include Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid activist who spent decades in jail, as well as Martin Luther King, who was assassinated for leading a non-violent campaign for civil rights.

As we’ll discover, it’s often hard to tell a false prophet from one who is genuine. But it’s important to tell them apart.

There is no doubt Jesus was firmly embedded in the prophetic tradition.

I have just re-read arguably the most renowned 20th century book on the subject, by Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972), who taught ethics and mysticism at New York’s Jewish Theological Seminary.

“This book is about some of the most disturbing people who have ever lived: the men whose inspiration brought the Bible into being — the men whose image is our refuge in distress, and whose voice and vision sustain our faith,” Heschel says in the opening sentence of The Prophets: An Introduction.

“The situation of a person immersed in the prophets’ words is one of being exposed to a ceaseless shattering of indifference, and one needs a skull of stone to remain callous to such blows,” wrote Heschel, describing the way prophets call into question conventional thinking.

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Harry Maier, a professor at the Vancouver School of Theology, says Jesus emerged out of the tradition of those who suffered grievously for criticizing royal and religious leaders.

Awestruck crowds would describe Jesus as a “prophet mighty in deed and word,” says Maier, a New Testament specialist. But Jesus himself acknowledged his teachings made him appear dishonourable.

“Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown,” Jesus says in Luke 4:24.

Unlike some Hebrew prophets, Jesus led “a prophetic movement with an emphasis not on apocalyptic judgment, but on the belief that the kingdom of God had arrived and that it is to be celebrated by eating and making merry, especially among those who have been disenfranchised,” Maier said this week.

“If Jeremiah is a prophet of doom and judgment, and Isaiah is one of promise and hope, Jesus is a prophet of joy and thanksgiving,” Maier said, adding Jesus, with his radical “love-your-enemy” ethics, often contrasted the peaceful kingdom of God with the savagery of the Roman Empire of that era.

One of Jesus’ most famous prophetic acts was the so-called “cleansing of the temple.” That’s when he confronted exploitive moneylenders who set up shop in Jerusalem’s temple and echoed Jeremiah’s denunciation against holy places being turned into “a den of robbers.”

Among the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims, Jesus is treated as the second greatest prophet — after Muhammad, the final one.

David and Farida Bano Ali, of Metro Vancouver, say Muslims believe both Jesus and Muhammad were messengers of God. But, unlike Christians, they don’t think Jesus was, in some mysterious way, divine.

With both Jesus and Muhammad, Maier says, “there is a strong emphasis on making right relationships with our neighbours, seeking justice, treating others with respect and living as though God were the most important thing in life.”

Despite the differences between the two men, Maier suggests, it’s fair to say both Muhammad and Jesus dramatically “overturned” almost everything.

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Which figures from modern history might be prophets?

The candidates might not be famous, because most prophets are not acclaimed in the ordinary sense. They’re frequently mocked, ignored or judged crazy.

And some, indeed, are “false prophets.” They’re narcissistic and deluded. They might include sectarian “prophets” like David Koresh, Sun Myung Moon, Shoko Ashara or Elizabeth Clare Prophet, who long ago predicted the Soviet Union was minutes away from launching nuclear missiles at the U.S. (I’ve walked down the eerie steps into her underground bomb shelters in Montana.)

Is biologist Paul Ehrlich, author of the controversial 1968 book, The Population Bomb, a more authentic prophet?

He was savaged for being a doomsayer, but Ehrlich’s warning that the Earth was heading for catastrophe remains as relevant as ever as over-population devastates vast regions.

And what do we make of American professor John Cobb, who in 1972 wrote the seminal book, Is it Too Late? A Theology of Ecology. Many of Cobb’s forecasts about environmental degradation have come to pass 43 years later, yet the world’s politicians only decided this month in Paris to get serious about global warming.

Some also consider mystic-anarchist Simone Weil, poverty activist Dorothy Day and Catholic paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to be modern-day prophets. Each stood passionately for peace, truth and justice in ways that led to ostracism.

Is France’s most famous and provocative novelist, Michel Houellebecq, a prophet? Or a crank?

Houellebecq and his new novel, Submission, were on the front cover of Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in January when its staff were massacred by Islamic extremists. Submission paints a complex future in which France elects a Muslim prime minister who imposes Shariah law.

Canada may have its prophets, too. Some argue Tommy Douglas, the Prairie Baptist preacher who founded the country’s universal medical system, was one. For his reformist troubles, the RCMP spied on Douglas for decades.

And what about former Vancouver COPE council member Bruce Yorke, who died this month? He was a Communist when there was a price to pay for it. Despite Naomi Klein’s thriving book sales, some maintain the hard-driving author of This Changes Everything also fits the role of prophet.

Whatever conclusions one draws on these people and others, it does not hurt to consider who today might be a bonafide prophet.

As Abraham Joshua Heschel suggests, most feel called to uphold the values of the ancient Hebrew prophets, who were appalled by humanity’s “abuse of freedom,” “aggressive sprawling pride” and “fierce greed.”

Even though they often speak fiercely, Heschel said, prophets are people of deep love and compassion.

And, though they often “begin with a message of doom, they conclude with a message of hope.”

NOTE TO READERS: We welcome your nominees for people you consider modern-day prophets. We expect to publish your recommendations in an upcoming post. (If you wish, we don’t need to publish your name.) Submit your candidates to Douglas Todd at dtodd@vancouversun.com.

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